Chapter Summaries

Ke Meng cooperated with Captain Luo and disclosed that he owned Tangyuan, a giant cat, and a pair of special gloves. He brought the items to the Special Affairs Investigation Bureau for testing and registration, arriving at its concealed site in Whale City.

• Ke Meng showed Captain Luo his review videos and explained that Tangyuan was his pet and could use Gigantification.
• Ke Meng demonstrated Tangyuan’s obedience, and Captain Luo said the pet had to undergo tests and be entered into the nationwide special registry.
• Ke Meng disclosed that he also owned a cat and a pair of gloves, and Captain Luo agreed he could keep controllable items after testing.
• Ke Meng went with the officers to the Special Affairs Investigation Bureau in Whale City’s Technology Development Zone.
• Ke Meng saw that the bureau operated under the company name Special Affairs Responsibility Co., Ltd., with armed soldiers guarding the entrance.

Ke Meng and the Special Affairs Investigation Bureau tested Big-Faced Cat, the Mighty Gloves, and Tangyuan, revealing their unusual abilities and strength. The bureau registered the items under Ke Meng’s ID and warned him to keep Big-Faced Cat safe.

• Ke Meng tested the Mighty Gloves, which produced a force reading of 2,802 jin, while their side effects remained unknown.
• Ke Meng and the researchers tested Tangyuan, whose five-meter transformation and paw strike produced a reading of 3,152 jin.
• The Bureau classified Big-Faced Cat as level 1 clearance and arranged to erase the testing staff’s memories of it.
• Captain Luo helped Ke Meng access the bureau’s classified archive, where he saw his ID and the three registered special-item numbers.

After the bureau classified Big-Faced Cat as a Class 1 object and sent Ke Meng home, he investigated why two shadow beings could not escape their insect hosts. He transferred Mi Jingyun’s shadow into a ladybug, where it appeared to fall dormant.

• Captain Luo told Ke Meng that headquarters had forbidden Class 0 testing and cleared him to take Big-Faced Cat home.
• Captain Luo drove Ke Meng home with Tangyuan and Big-Faced Cat, and Chen Momo confirmed his safe return.
• Ke Meng found Mi Jingyun and Wen Yushan’s shadows trapped beneath ants whose original shadows he had removed.
• Ke Meng speculated that the ants could not leave because they lacked shadows, then transferred Mi Jingyun into a ladybug shadow.
• Mi Jingyun showed no response in the ladybug, while Wen Yushan’s ant trembled at Ke Meng’s actions.

Ke Meng questioned Mi Jingyun and Wen Yushan about Shadow Stream, then tested how shadows interacted with inanimate objects before going to sleep. On Orange Star, the shared blue-ocean dream spread beyond gaming pods, prompting a worldwide crisis alert as researchers struggled to understand it.

• Ke Meng learned that shadow creatures who possessed beings without shadows could become trapped inside them, and he questioned Mi Jingyun and Wen Yushan about Shadow Stream.
• Mi Jingyun and Wen Yushan revealed that they had once been ordinary people from Octopus City, disfigured in a theater fire, before Shadow Stream transformed them into shadow creatures.
• Ke Meng tested putting a bug's shadow into a chair, but the chair remained motionless, so he postponed further experiments until the next day.
• Ke Meng placed the two shadow creatures in a cardboard box under Tangyuan's watch, checked his newly published Bilibili video, and went to sleep.
• Researchers on Orange Star discovered that people across the planet were experiencing the blue-ocean dream during ordinary sleep as well as in gaming pods.
• Orange Star authorities declared a level-one alert after the nightmare affected more than one hundred thousand people, while researchers investigating it unknowingly helped spread it through their reports and accounts.

Ke Meng used the shared dream’s mental energy to create a continent and develop the dream world after realizing the nightmare had spread to countless people. Wright drowned upon entering the dream, respawned on the new land, and watched it transform into a forested landscape with a mountain and river.

• Ke Meng sensed countless people sharing the spreading dream and found he could not stop it, so he decided to make the dream world more normal and pleasant.
• Ke Meng entered White Milk’s dream and saw millions of people gathering inside Great Whale, where players faced a shortage of water and authorities guarded the well.
• Ke Meng saw Wright drown in the ocean after joining the dream, then used the dreamers’ mental energy to create a continent and respawn him on land.
• Wright woke on a barren desert, but plants, insects, stones, grassland, and a river appeared and grew around him as time seemed to accelerate.
• Wright watched the new landscape settle into a forest beneath a snowy mountain, then collapsed to his knees in fear and exhaustion.

Ke Meng created a vast new continent in the dream world, and new dreamers began appearing there instead of in the sea. Wright helped them understand their situation and report the change, while the Orange Star Research Institute faced a rapidly growing Nightmare Disease toll.

• Ke Meng set aside his vague plan to have players build cities and covertly watched the dream world through Synesthesia.
• New dreamers spawned in the forest, where Wright told them the sea had become land and advised them to make weapons and report what they learned after waking.
• Ke Molo and Wright tested their game equipment and found that its abilities and stat bonuses did not carry over into the dream.
• Ke Molo woke after twenty minutes and informed the Orange Star Research Institute that the sea had turned into land.
• The Institute updated its records to 980,000 people who had awakened from their dreams, while many more affected people remained asleep.

Researcher Li Shen concluded that Nightmare Disease spread through the internet, prompting Orange Star’s authorities to block all related content. The chapter ended with a citizen detained after repeatedly refusing warnings for reposting about the disease.

• Li Shen reviewed patient records and concluded that reading online posts about Nightmare Disease could spread it, even across physical and geographical barriers.
• The director told Li Shen that officials were blocking phrases and keywords related to Nightmare Disease across the internet.
• Orange Star’s automated systems rapidly deleted posts and reports about the disease and began scanning audio files for related accounts.
• Ye Ao Nai Wo He reposted a deleted account of his nightmare and repeatedly refused the internet police’s warnings.
• A robot police officer arrived at Ye Ao Nai Wo He’s home and detained him for allegedly endangering public safety and network security.

Meng Lian Xingchen saw authorities arrest a man for posting about his dreams as Orange Star’s nightmare crisis worsened and information about it vanished from the internet. As researchers struggled to contain the outbreak, Ke Meng heard someone performing a ritual to summon him.

• Meng Lian Xingchen watched police arrest her neighbor for posting about his dreams and checked the official site, where every nightmare disease article had disappeared.
• Meng Lian Xingchen found that nightmare discussions and the game forum had been censored, and her own post asking what had happened was deleted.
• Meng Lian Xingchen posted three question marks, read replies describing arrests and bans, and saw the thread deleted after someone mentioned nightmares.
• The Scientific Research General Institute announced that speech restrictions were necessary, urged people to self-isolate, and admitted there was no solution.
• Researchers at the Scientific Research General Institute tracked rising reports while still believing nightmare disease spread through the internet.
• Ke Meng heard a hymn calling to him during Synesthesia, stopped perceiving a player's dream, and tried to locate the person conducting a summoning ritual.

Ke Meng tried to teach the Stone Man Tribe the spatial skill Water: Mirror Traversal so they could escape the mine and test whether divine power could overcome the game's rules. The knowledge overwhelmed nearly all the stone men, leaving them babbling and unable to use the skill.

• The Stone Man Tribe summoned Great Cthulhu and offered him a strange trident in exchange for freedom from the mine.
• Ke Meng considered the game's restriction that trapped the stone men and decided to test it by teaching them Water: Mirror Traversal.
• Ke Meng used his knowledge transfer skill to send the Stone Man Tribe the spatial skill's instructions.
• The stone men experienced visions of still water and repeated fragments of the knowledge, while many went mad.
• Ke Meng saw that the stone men could not explain or use the skill and judged them too weak to serve as test subjects.

After waking from his experience as Great Cthulhu, Ke Meng found a dangerous trident and fish among the offerings from the stone men. He learned how they affected minds and considered ways to raise his resistance as his task neared completion.

• Ke Meng woke in his room and found a black trident with a strange fish impaled on it.
• Looking at the fish's scales made Ke Meng see his own face and left him unable to move or speak.
• Ke Meng called to Tangyuan, who blocked his view and freed him from the fish's effect.
• Ke Meng used Big-Faced Cat to learn that the Unnamed Fish's scales caused the illusion and that the Uncertain Trident conjured an animal whenever it was thrust.
• Ke Meng had Tangyuan cover the fish with cloth, checked that his task had reached 21,000 views, and wished for a faster way to increase his resistance.

Ke Meng showed Chen Momo Tangyuan and Big-Faced Cat, then watched Tangyuan’s review video with her. Chen Momo accepted that the strange pets were real, while Tangyuan happily mistook her laughter for praise.

• Chen Momo brought Ke Meng breakfast and asked about the plush toy, so Ke Meng called Tangyuan into the living room.
• Ke Meng explained which objects from his review videos were strange, and Chen Momo asked to see the cat.
• Chen Momo examined Big-Faced Cat in Ke Meng’s bedroom while Tangyuan joined them to watch Ke Meng’s latest video.
• The video showed Tangyuan transforming, smashing a tree, and using its fur to do housework, prompting amused comments from viewers.
• Chen Momo patted Tangyuan and laughed at the video, and Tangyuan barked happily, thinking she was praising it.

Ke Meng reviewed the Bureau’s secrecy system and considered how to explain the growing number of special items he possessed. He tested whether offerings would arrive wherever he slept and whether insects could animate inanimate objects, discovering that an ant’s shadow made a doll’s ears twitch.

• Ke Meng reviewed what he had learned about the Abnormal Affairs Investigation Bureau and worried that his unregistered special items would eventually attract suspicion.
• Ke Meng decided to sleep on the third floor and see whether future offerings would appear there, helping him determine whether their destination was tied to him or his bedroom.
• Ke Meng noticed the Bureau monitoring his home, then bought plush dolls and remote-controlled cars to test the shadow species’ effect on inanimate objects.
• Ke Meng first merged insects with the dolls’ existing shadows, but neither doll moved during the test.
• Ke Meng replaced the dolls’ shadows with insect shadows, and after half an hour Tangyuan noticed the ears of the doll bearing an ant shadow twitch slightly.

Ke Meng tested whether shadows could control inanimate objects, finding that human shadows moved figurines more often than insect shadows but struggled to control them. He began testing a shadow in a toy race car and unlocked a harder review task as he sought greater resistance.

• Ke Meng confirmed that insect shadows could make Beast-Eared Girl figurines twitch their ears, then had Wen Yushan and Mi Jingyun possess figurines and found their ears moved more often.
• Wen Yushan and Mi Jingyun returned to ant bodies and reported that controlling the figurines had been extremely difficult.
• Ke Meng tested insects in toy race cars, but neither car moved during the one-hour test.
• Ke Meng put Mi Jingyun's shadow into a race car and returned the other Shadow Species to a figurine for continued testing.
• Ke Meng claimed his review reward, raising his resistance to 4.3, and unlocked a hard task offering 15 resistance for a review seen by at least 400,000 viewers.

Ke Meng monitored Wen Yushan and Mi Jingyun as they tried to adapt to their new forms, while Orange Star researchers identified Nightmare Disease as a content-transmitted illness and announced their findings. The chapter left Orange Star’s citizens watching the institute’s widely viewed warning and afraid to sleep.

• Ke Meng received an unknown mission to review a special object native to Blue Star for an audience of 400,000 or more, but left it unaccepted because he did not know where to find one.
• Wen Yushan’s beast ears twitched more frequently, while Mi Jingyun’s shadow remained unable to move the race car.
• Ke Meng moved upstairs to sleep and considered how shadow species might inhabit objects as he continued investigating Shadow Stream on his own.
• On Orange Star, researcher Li Shen argued that Nightmare Disease spread through nightmare content shared online, in writing, or through conversation.
• Orange Star’s research institute released an edited video explaining the disease’s transmission, and its view count rose past 100 million as citizens watched.

Ke Meng watched new players enter the joint dream and decided to make its world more interesting by having players help build it. He invaded the dream as Great Cthulhu, terrifying everyone who dared look directly at him, and left Orange Star’s people fearing Nightmare Disease more than before.

• Ke Meng sensed that far more people were dreaming and connected to a player's dream through Synesthesia as Orange Star residents began sleeping again.
• Orange Star officials reassured new players, while expert players formed teams to explore the dream world and one player tested death before respawning in terror.
• Ke Meng decided that players should help build a more interesting dream world and began invading the joint dream as Great Cthulhu.
• Most players were too frightened to look up, but Playing Priest Makes Your Heart Dirty stared at the fog, collapsed, and suffered terrifying visions.
• Ke Meng withdrew after two hundred and sixty thousand players looked at him and experienced intense terror, raising Orange Star's fear of Nightmare Disease.

Ke Meng added construction temples to the dream world so players could build within limits, while players who had stared at him woke with abnormal brain waves and received emergency attention. The chapter left the wolf siblings Jiri and Flaky discovering a temple but unable to reach it across the lake.

• Players who had looked directly at Ke Meng woke with headaches, and their gaming pods alerted hospitals and research institutes to possible brain injuries.
• Ke Meng used Synesthesia to monitor the dream world and introduced construction temples that let players build structures without changing or destroying his original creations.
• Jiri and Flaky, a sister-and-brother pair of wolf players, found a white stone construction temple beside a lake.
• Flaky tried to swim across the lake but had to turn back, prompting Jiri to scold him for acting rashly.
• Ke Meng listened to the siblings suddenly speak in translationese and was left bewildered by their change in speech.

Players learned to use the Construction Temple’s building skill, while the Orange Star General Research Institute traced unstable brain waves to the virtual game World and prepared an investigation of the Kobolds. The game’s servers reopened for the institute’s Zero Mission, and Ke Meng heard the announcement in R'lyeh.

• Feilaiji and Jiri tried to learn how to swim across the lake, then watched Butt-Cooling Breeze build a bridge from cubes of dirt and stone.
• Butt-Cooling Breeze and the two wolf-headed siblings obtained the construction skill and used it to build across the lake.
• Researchers linked the abnormal brain waves of 260,000 players to the Kobold sacrificial ritual witnessed by Clear, I'm Done Being Human, and Hair Raised in Fury.
• The Scientific Research General Institute recalled World's developers and ordered them to prepare max-level accounts and god-tier equipment for Zero Mission.
• The engineers reopened the game servers, and Ke Meng heard an ethereal voice announce that they were open.

Researchers discovered that the game ignored their altered accounts and equipment, forcing them to level up normally before investigating the Kobold Mountain Village. Meanwhile, Ke Meng accepted the fish frogs’ sacrifice and used a random buff to affect them, as a group of players approached their village.

• Calm and Untroubled explained that the researchers had to level up and gear up from scratch, then assigned investigation tasks and reported the problem to the General Research Institute.
• Calm and Untroubled advised the elderly director to investigate the abnormal game and recruit experienced high-level assassins to watch the Kobold Mountain Village, and the director agreed.
• Ke Meng accepted the fish frogs’ offering of Wonder Ability Water and used a random buff to try to awaken their ancestral bloodline.
• The fish frogs felt their bodies change; some celebrated their increased strength while others suffered agonizing deterioration.
• Everything Is Tough and the game engineer approached Fish Frog Village, a level-five mob area, after sensing a brief sinister chill.

Tumei-chan and a group of veteran players investigated Fish Frog Village, a supposed level-five zone where powerful Fish Frogs could immobilize players. The support team was overwhelmed by the frogs, and the chapter left distant teams preparing to investigate the abnormal area.

• Tumei-chan scouted Fish Frog Village, was captured by Fish Frogs, and reported that their immobilization could not be broken.
• Everything Is Tough summoned level-nineteen veterans to support the leveling party and explained the danger at the village.
• Mianmian led the veterans into Fish Frog Village, where a giant Fish Frog's croak inflicted fear and the smaller frogs surrounded the players.
• Mianmian and the other veterans fought back, but the Fish Frogs captured or killed many of them.
• Everything Is Tough reported that some Fish Frogs were as powerful as level-forty monsters, prompting distant teams to decide they needed to investigate.

Ke Meng discovered that smelling Random Skill Water made him desperately thirsty, and he repeatedly drank water to raise his resistance. He left the bottle unopened for Tangyuan while the dog cooked noodles.

• Ke Meng found the jade bottle in his third-floor room and learned that Random Skill Water granted a random skill but made its drinker fond of water.
• Tangyuan agreed to drink the potion, but Ke Meng hesitated and brought the bottle downstairs while teaching the dog to cook noodles.
• After opening the bottle, Ke Meng felt overwhelming thirst, drank several cups of water, and gained 0.1 resistance.
• Ke Meng deliberately sniffed the potion and drank more water, gaining another 0.1 resistance and considering the bottle a way to raise his resistance.
• Tangyuan watched Ke Meng repeat the sniffing-and-drinking routine while tending to the noodles.